


Intimacy

by PhenomenalBrat



Category: Supergirl (TV 2015)
Genre: Demisexuality, Discussion of compulsive heterosexuality, Discussion of compulsive sex, F/F, Flashbacks, Kara Danvers mentioned - Freeform, Lena Luthor Mention, None Sexual nudity, Supercorp mentioned, Touch Repulsion, alternative universe, hyposexuality, non sexual intimacy, valentines day
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-14
Updated: 2021-02-14
Packaged: 2021-03-14 14:15:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,360
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29419965
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PhenomenalBrat/pseuds/PhenomenalBrat
Summary: Kelly and Alex spend a day relaxing in bed to enjoy each other's company for Valentine's day. Kelly tells Alex about some complicated intangalments and compulsive sexual expectations from a past relationship.Happy Valentines day!
Relationships: Alex Danvers/Kelly Olsen
Comments: 1
Kudos: 17





	Intimacy

**Author's Note:**

> Author's: Sex is good. Actually to be more clear, mutually enjoyed enthusiastically consensual sex is good. Sex is or can be extremely intimate. It can also be very un-intimate as well. Sex is not the only way to explore intimacy in a relationship though. In fact it's not even necessarily the primary way of engaging intimacy. What we are exploring here is a different understanding of the ways desire, touch, space and intimacy manifest and what is or isn't healthy sexual expectation in a relationship. For that purpose we are mapping through this AU story in the premise of Demisexual Gay Kelly and theorizing how that would manifest and effect her interactions with Alex and her own understanding of sex, relationships, intimacy and compartmentalized various forms of attraction. To reiterate, sex in healthy enjoyable ways is very fun but also sex positivity is say yes or no based on your personal emotional needs and respecting other people's need to decline and embrace other forms of intimacy. That is, in my opinions, part of Dansen's "love language" too.
> 
> TW: Mild touch repulsion( its less like "disgusted by touch" and more like spacial awareness and wanting to have space and boundaries respected or gets agitated) Non-sexual nudity ( feels weird to need to clarify this cause nudity should not be assumed to be sexual unless its explicitly made sexual anyways but you know…) Discussion of sexual expectations and "compulsive sex", Flashbacks, description of compulsive sex, past compulsive heterosexuality, mentions of coming out etc...

The scent of honey and oats body wash that lingered on Alex' skin after the shower they'd shared earlier, blended with that unique, warm spiced smell that was pure Alex. With the blindfold on, Kelly's sense of smell felt like it had been kicked up a notch too. The soft hum of old music vibrated gently through the room too. The speaker that was linked to Kelly's phone had been shuffling through her list.

"Mmmm…." Kelly breathed out a sigh of contentment as she cuddled further into Alex. Her head rested safely on Alex' chest. The easy, relaxed Intimacy of laying naked together in the quiet of the candle light, hand not yet given way to soft and vigorous love making and yet Kelly felt completely enveloped by Alex. 

"Love?"

"Mmmm?"

Alex carefully brought another small piece of Chocolate to Kelly's lips with one hand. Her other hand kept up its task of rubbing gentle circles down Kelly's back.

"Good, I love Valentine's Day," Kelly mumbled before letting the Chocolate pass her lips.

Alex chuckled a little, as if Kelly had said something particularly witty or clever. "I do aim to please.

Kelly found herself moving, being rolled a bit and laying on the sheets. The new royal blue, 1000 thread count sheet felt incredible, soft and almost hypnotic against her skin. Alex leaned over her then, kissing her shoulder and allowing. "Tell me what you need babe."

"Alex."

Considering how much skin to skin contact they'd been sharing, some part of Kelly thought she should want to be ravished. But more than anything she just felt hungry;It was not in a sexual way per say though that was certainly on the back burner. It wasn't in a food way either, though that was there, with the way Alex had been feeding her. "I wanna see you babe." 

Alex was quick to follow her request. She quickly but carefully removed the blindfold. Her lips placed a kiss on Kelly's forehead and gave her a moment to adjust her eyes to the light, although it was mostly candles and a night lamp that lit the bedroom. 

"This has certainly been a week, hasn't it?"

Alex reached over to the table grabbing a glass and pouring in wine from the bottle of Sangovesi they'd been working on since they slid out of the shower, giggling and relaxed, enjoying easy touches and light conversation. She sipped some before leaning in to kiss Kelly and offer Kelly a taste of the sweet, deep red flavors. She pulled back then.

"This certainly has been a week."

The laughter that followed was full of familiarity. If Kelly had to put a name for the energy that bounced between her and Alex, she would have called it serenity. Their love language was always a swirling of touch and active service; They had known each other forever or at least it felt that way. 

Alex read her desires like an open book, though they didn't lean quite as amorous as they could have, given the holiday mood in the air as Valentine's day wound down. 

"If you keep giving me candy and wine in bed, you're going to spoil me."

"You've discovered my plan." Alex joked easily.

**. . . .**

There was a quiet that overtook the room for a few minutes as the laughter died down. "Babe?" Kelly finally asked Alex a question. "What are you thinking about?"

Alex was gazing at her like she was the moon in the night sky and the stars and everything wondrous.

"You."

"Alex-" 

" I was a little worried earlier. "

When Kelly had gotten home earlier from work, having finished her day as soon as possible, she had been admittedly agitated from dealing with men she would of called "needy attention whoring delusional children with no Sense of boundaries or themselves," if she were a less polite person. One in particular, was a man child of epic proportions who had spent an endless amount of time demanding validation, because he had attached his entire identity to outside factors to the point where he had dangerously started internalizing every criticism of his work. His supervisors had finally referred him to Kelly for an evaluation. She liked helping people, but the emotional labor expected from her to fix other people was exhausting. 

The amount of times she's been touched or brushed past or anything in the past 8 hours, had left her twitchy. She didn't dislike touch or people. She was just very consciously aware of her personal space, even when trying to make emotional room for those she helped.

When she got home she had tossed herself on the couch to watch Alex cook that vegetarian pasta dish that Kelly loved. Unfortunately, she had cringed, almost pulling into herself when Alex came over and touched her earlier, while she lay on the couch; not that she had meant to. Alex touching her was nice. She usually enjoyed it. It was all the decompression in her brain that needed to unwind though. Alex being Alex had read her non verbal quo's perfectly though. And a post dinner crash on the couch had morphed into resting her head on Alex' lap while Alex played  _ Xena  _ on the TV screen to let Kelly unwind. 

Kelly herself had suggested the shower after pulling her brain together. Alex had obediently followed her lead, reading the ques of Kelly's complicated inner monolog. 

**. . . .**

**"** My brain wasn't… _ sexing  _ right earlier." She joked

"You don't need to explain." Alex moved in closer, repositioning herself to sit closer and cuddle into Kelly. "Trust me. You're not doing anything incorrectly. "

The sound of Brian McKnight's ' _ Back at one'  _ was vibrating the air quietly around them. There was something decided more intimate that sex in the air. The vulnerability or simply being naked with another person and trusting them to " _ get you"  _ in more ways than simply wanting to fuck you right then,was a kind of spark she had not had with anyone since Tala had died.

"Tell me about your day?" Kelly whispered the request as her eyes drifted close while Alex held her.

"Captured a Smrothian fire Alien, then helped Kara pick out a Valentine's gift for Lena...then just thought about you, made your favorite dinner-"

"Spoiled. I'm spoiled. "

Alex continued relating the details of her day as Kelly listened. The lingering taste of the wine and feeling of the sheets on her naked skin, would probably have short cutted Kelly's thoughts to something more salacious, if it were a different day. Today though they felt more like rest and quiet and home, more so than anything else right then. Sometimes certain smells or combinations of smells or music kicked her mind right into "sex mode" like flipping a switch in her head, and then sometimes it very much sent her into " _ cuddle mode"  _ like she was looking for tactile gratification that for some reason registered internally the same as sexual gratification, or perhaps even more so. That wasn't too say that naked Alex fresh from a shower wasn't titillating or attractive. Her fiance was a work of art. 

Actually some voyeuristic part of Kelly's brain decently found it enjoyable to watch Alex move or lay down like this; Naked and clear and close. Alex understood that inna deep and complicated way that Noone else besides Tala really had. To be fair maybe it was that Kelly's brain had a weirdly more complex understanding of sex or touchbor space. In her defense though, when grown men violate your boundaries of touch, space and sex in profound ways as your growing up, there is a reasonableness to how your brain processes touch and space and desire in nearly compartmentalized ways.

As she listened to Alex relate the details of the gift she helped Kara with, a thought occured to Kelly. "Alex?" She interrupted. 

"Yeah babe?"

"I love you. You know that right?"

"I know." 

"Are you- aren't you-? What are you thinking about right now?"

"How much I love hold you like this." Alex answered earnestly and immediately.

"Sex?"

Alex laughed slightly. "You're giving me cuddle vibes more that sex vibes right now babe. You are quite exquisite though. Is that what you want right now?"

Well honestly...no. It wasn't what Kelly wanted but part of her imagined that Alex would. "You don't?" 

"I want...to hold you and let you feel safe and loved in whatever way you're desiring love."

Kelly sighed. Her mind trickled back to the past slowly. 

"What's on your mind?"

"Alex do you remember when I told you about my ex? Jason?"

" oh yeah. The  _ "no homo"  _ prop guy when you were trying to-"

"Alex!"

It's true. " Alex laughed. 

It was true. She didn't generally like to say it like that. She hadn't been sexually attracted to Jason. He was or had been a friend sort of though. Other people, more than anything, had insisted on that whole relationship happening. He was…nice though and he was there so there was that. He had been aesthetically pleasing to look at. He certainly wasn't ugly but there was decidedly zero spark there. It wasn't that she hadn't tried. She simply couldn't give him what he wanted. She wasn't attracted to him, which made his clinginess agitating. "I was thinking about the last Valentine's I spent with him...the one that kinda lead into...into me  _ coming out _ to him and the break up."

**. . . .**

(7 years ago)

_ Kelly starred down at her cellphone. Jason's message was stark on the screen. It probably should of felt more romantic but her brain was definitely not registering it that way. _

Jason: "Hey babe. I got us a hotel room for Valentine's day so we can take a day off and celebrate. I'll pick you up around 5pm.Love you."

_ Ostensibly that was a romantic and fun thing. Jason's idea of "Celebrate" was almost always, "be alone and have sex" which probably should of felt more intimate but generally felt more like her body was a masturbation prop for him to cum on. To be fair, she probably should of been better at vocalizing that to him. He wasn't violent or a jackass or abusive but he was almost hyper obsessive and clingy. Adding on the lack of actual interest or sexual spark and she what essentially felt like a compulsive command for sex that could not have felt less intimate, and she actively wondered why he thought that idea would be appealing or arousing for her.  _

_ She certainly didn't dislike sex. It had been an...illuminating experience in highschool with Desiree. She had really liked Desiree. Perhaps it had been the way they had just clicked on so many levels or just that her mind intuitively knew she was attracted to women. It had felt less like something she was compelling herself to attempt, that was for sure although part of her thought that maybe it was just him but that didn't really add up either. The "problem" was her. _

_ Kelly sighed as she nearly rolled her eyes to the back of her head. Sargent Valheid had let the group go early after finishing most assigned tasks. Tala was actually so much sweeter than people thought. Sargent Val had told her she could just call her that. It was sort of their thing. The many conversations they'd had bred an easy familiarity between them. It almost felt like- like-she had a boyfriend. Val was a good friend. Admiration. That's all that was. With Valentine's days and presidents day right around the corner, the base was mostly running light and she would have the weekend off. She typed a quick reply to Jason. _

Kelly: Sounds fun. See you at 5.❤

_ That felt like how she should respond to these random romantic surprises. It came off, grateful and polite and demure. It was interesting because she felt annoyed and agitated and tired. That could of just been her mind exhausting itself over her lack of enthusiasm at the idea of being alone with the man who was actually her boyfriend.  _

_ She got off the couch heading up stairs to grab a bag and put some clothes in it for the stay at the hotel. Jason was gonna be there in an hour. _

**_. . . ._ **

**_( 6 hours Later)_ **

_ Kelly lay in just her underwear, wrapped in the sheets of the hotel bed resting. Truth be told, she could not understand Jason's fascination with "getting away from everything" by going to a hotel for a few days. It was like his go to idea for new years, birthday's, holidays, etc. It was almost compulsive.  _

_ He was sleeping next to her in just the black silk boxers she had bought for him a few months ago. He looked cute. He seemed restful now at least. _

**_Trigger Warning : Compulsive sex, Compulsive heterosexuality, mild touch repulsion ( More in a "this makes my skin crawl way for Kelly")_ **

_ He always felt...hungry or perhaps excessively needy when he was crawling over her. She increasingly got the feeling during anything sexual with him that she had been pawed at. It had increasingly brought out this aversion to being touched or at least touched in certain ways. For lack of a better word, it made her skin crawl. That of course was unscored by the inescapable feeling that she was never quite giving him whatever it was that he wanted in a sexual sense.  _

_ The back and forth in her brain of "get off me. I can't breathe when you're pressing me into the mattress" versus "of course my boyfriend wants to touch me. It's weird that I feel agitated," was a fun fucked up game her mind was constantly playing with itself during sex. The room was always too hot and the sense that she couldn't breathe, never quite left her body when he was on top of her, when he stripped her clothes off and then his. It was strange because she'd figured out when she was younger that she liked it a little rough but she liked to feel safe. Bite but ask first… Jason just kind of did things. Everything was almost too fast, like the part of her brain that should be sexing was never in the page that he was. _

_ On a really screwed up level she knew exactly why that was. She didn't trust him. That felt wrong to say. He wasn't a violent or volatile jackass. Her body quite essentially didn't trust him in the sexual sense and she wasn't attracted to him. Her brain couldn't "sex" without the sexual attraction "spark" no matter how physically or aesthetically attractive the other person was. That was actually why she was so bad at giving him whatever he wanted, when that had been so much easier with Desiree. _

_ Jason shifted around as he slept. He moved, near unconsciously reaching out to touch her. He did that alot when they slept together or had sex. She slid off the side of the bed, quietly moving across the floor toward the bathroom. She needed to shower in peace as soon as possible.  _

_ This wasn't working. If nothing else it was becoming increasingly clear to her that this whole relationship needed to end. Perhaps saying, "this isn't working because its clear to me that I'm gay" would hurt him less that, " We are fundamentally incompatible and you agitate me and can't read non verbal ques" because both things were true, regardless of how much her brain was trying to rationalize its way around both. _

_ KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK _

_ "Kelly?" Jason's voice called her name from the other side of the door. _

_ "I'm just taking a shower." _

_ There was a pause. "Oh. Do you need help?" _

_ No. Because help was code for him wanting shower sex or he just wanted to hover behind her in the shower to touch her and somewhere in her mind it was obvious to her that she absolutely couldn't do this anymore. Not that she disliked naked shower fun. Desiree had...that was not the correct thought process to be having right now, she realized. "No babe. Just give me a few minutes." It always felt like she was trying to get a few minutes to decompress and as usual, when she stepped in the shower, she started second guessing whether it was her that was actually the problem or maybe it was just with him." _

**. . . .**

**(Present)**

"I'm sure Jason was a nice guy but he didn't understand or respect your boundaries. "Alex commented. She was laying on her side now, facing Kelly after they had moved around a bit while Kelly related some past issues. 

"That's true. I feel I'm being unfair if I say it like that though. I was never really clear with him about certain things."

"Maybe. Were you deliberately unclear or were you unclear cause you didn't feel emotionally close enough to be honest with him?" Alex reached forward, tucking Kelly's hair back to move it out of her face, while she waited for Kelly's response.

"I-" Kelly paused. The answer to that was obvious to her. "I think maybe it was both," she admitted. " I was unclear because I didn't trust him emotionally so then the choice to not specify my needs was unconscious and deliberate at the same time. "

"Plus he was just choosing not to register non verbal ques." Alex added that in.

"So then I worry that I am not giving- I don't know, enough sexual attention to you."

"Babe. You shouldn't think of sex like something you need to give to anyone. Its very much a mutual thing.Sex is like 75% mental." 

Kelly recalled telling Alex that a while back. " _ Sex and Desire is all like 75 percent mental for me. Sometimes my brain needs time to work up a fantasy."  _ That had been an interesting conversation about give and take they had had with each other. The fact that she had simultaneously been explaining BDSM rules and dovetailed into that had hardly phased Alex at all.

"It's okay for you to process things your own way. I'm not going to die. I'm always gonna love you and like just holding you and yes I'm gonna enjoy it when we do have sex."

Kelly laughed lightly. "I do aim to please." Kelly ran her eyes over Alex.

"You are quite thorough and generous when the mood strikes you," Alex complimented. 

It was probably the lack of pressure and assumed ubiquitous sexual libio that made it infinitely easier to have this kinda conversation with Alex. She hadn't exactly been able to do this with Jason or Gwen for that matter for various reasons. "That's one of things I love about you. You get me so well."

Alex reached down towards the sheet that was folded at the bottom of the bed and pulled it up over them. " You only love one thing about me?" Alex asked in mock offense. 

"Actually I only want you for your body." Kelly stated flatly before laughing. Alex caught the joke there laughing herself. As the sheets came up she pulled Kelly back into a hug and moved to let Kelly rest her head on Alex' chest. "And here I thought you liked my mind."

"You are quite intellectually stimulating."

Kelly closed her eyes to rest, enjoying the quiet for a few minutes. Janet Jackson's  _ "All for you"  _ had come on quietly in the background. Alex was drifting off to rest and this was just about this most safe and tactically enjoyable experience ever. This was almost profoundly more intimate that sex. Why she felt that way, she wasn't sure but Alex made it increasingly okay that she did. That too was profoundly intimate gratification. 

"Alex?" 

"Yeah."

"Happy Valentine's day."

"Happy Valentine's day everyday. " Alex mumbled. It was cute. She unconsciously held Kelly a little tighter. "Babe?"

"Good touch." Kelly answered immediately, knowing what Alex was gonna ask. It really was just that easy with Alex. The both just knew things about each other. That was decidedly intimate too. 

The End

Thank you for reading. Please leave comments, kudos, questions or constructive criticism. 

**Author's Note:**

> Author's notes: Demisexuality is probably better described here as hyposexuality. One might call it a grey area. In this Valentine's fic, we are hypothesizing that Kelly can be Gay while being Hyposexual and how that reflects in her relationship and interactions and past and presence. In that sense, we see her dealing in the past with both compulsive heterosexuality and also compulsive sex in general in ways that run against her internal sense of space, and desire and touch and how those things would process in her mind. 
> 
> Author's notes 2: In some respect, Demisexuality or hyposexual attraction is simply a desire for connection or spark before sexual prosual. That feels like something that could be perfectly valid for Kelly. In the book 'Ace' by Angela Chen, there's a section where it essentially says that one might theorize that Demisexual is actually normal but that society is so hypersexualized that not being hypersexual reads as low sexual impulse rather than normal or typical sexual impulse. 
> 
> To be clear, I'm not desexualizing Kelly in this story. The situation in hand is navigating intimacy in non sexual ways, that can be equally if not more intimare than sex. Sexual liberation in that sense is Kelly understanding that she doesn't owe anyone sex. Intimacy in this narrative is then found in Alex and Kelly mutually understanding how Kelly navigates desire in her brain and respecting that. There's a lot of misconceptions people still inadvertently have about Sexuality, asexuality, hyposexuality and how that works in a relationship when navigating space, boundaries, touch desire etc. In some respects that certainly runs counter to the hyper sexualization of queer identity. Dansen as a couple strikes me as the type who's love language is very centered in communication and touch. That in itself though, is also not inherently sexual. So for Valentine's perhaps in effort to be subversive we ran through this Demisexuality Alternative Universe exploration. I am not an expert on that subject (hyposexuality/ Demisexuality/Greysexuality )though. That requires more reading and research. 
> 
> Author's notes 3: That flash back part… I was definitely going for something authentic and relatable that is also a true story. It's complicated. I also wanted to be fair so that Kelly's feelings are understandable in both the sense of homosexuality and hyposexuality/Demisxuality in the face of compulsive heterosexuality and compulsive sex. There's about a paragraph or two of detail that I wrote then erased. My feeling was that adding more detail was gonna be more harmful and distracting rather than be helpful at all. I wasn't attempting to portray Jason behavior as rape-y. It actually more or a reflection of the fact that people in relationships with hyposexual/Demisexual or Asexual people don't make emotional space for that. On the other hand Kelly herself isn't aware of that consciously even though her body gives plenty of not verbal status quo's to him and to her in that regard. This plays into the compulsive heterosexuality layered on top of compulsive sex. I hope that cleared up any questions that section might of given rise to. As always, thanks for reading. 
> 
> Side note: Zero offense, but, Really hoping to not have to fight folks who don't understand the story or Demisexuality and how it can over lap into homosexuality. Hoping everyone uses thorough reading comprehension and observes the tags on this story too. Also I'm not gonna pose any questions that could possibly be misunderstood. Keeping it simple. Happy Valentine's Day.❤
> 
> -BJ


End file.
